


"A Study In Hotch" Psychological Evaluation of Hotchner, Aaron SSA

by bisexualhotchner



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner is bisexual, Canonical Character Death, Casual Sex, Daddy Issues, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homophobic Language, Implied Aaron Hotchner/David Rossi, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Aaron Hotchner, Past Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner, SSA Hotchner has a lot of issues, Smut, basically Aaron loves more people than he admits, guys i know i've only written fluff but this is not a happy thing, there's pwp and hurt/comfort too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-01-26 22:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21381796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualhotchner/pseuds/bisexualhotchner
Summary: Hotch goes to a well-deserved therapy session.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Comments: 15
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this?

And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

  
\- Ilya Kaminsky.

He was barely nine at the time.

Even as they grew estranged, he remembered his mother very vividly. There was a time when she meant everything for him, times other than the conscious fetus period of his development and the dependent nature of breastfeeding and nurturing. She was a picture-perfect, young housewife who never made it to college, and she wore aprons even as she rarely did the chores herself. She stuffed cigarettes in long holders and smoked during pregnancy. Hotch realized later on, that him and Sean were both born prematurely because of chronic prenatal nicotine exposure.

  
He used to remember the smell of her perfume well. The coffee she always drank, ever-present in her breath. He remembered how she put one hand around his shoulders as he clinged onto her legs in the presence of his father’s law firm partners, clients and other work buddies. He used to remember how she chatted away on the landline with the neighbors and her close family members, gossiping to them about each others’ secrets.

  
And now he only remembered her silence. How she said nothing when his father thought slapping him full force was the only way to teach him a lesson.

  
It wasn’t always like that, though. Sometimes, his father was just quiet. He didn’t sit down and play with him, didn’t tell him how his day went, and he certainly didn’t take his hand to go out to the park with him to toss baseballs.

  
Sometimes, more often than he liked to admit, he got woken up early in the morning while his father was preparing to go out. His ministrations, not quite loud but done carelessly enough to make some noise, woke his mother, too.

  
He sneaked out of his room upstairs to sit at the top of the stairs, wedging his still slightly chubby legs between the bars of the railing. From there, he had a view of the door through which his father would leave in minutes, and with the Sun barely up, the colors still drained from the world, the whole scene could’ve been one of the black and white movies where the family man kissed his pregnant wife and small son goodbye before going out to start the day.

  
Except that it never happened. The man didn’t pull his woman in, and wouldn’t have gotten to hear Aaron’s childishly disgusted whine from the stairs. He didn’t hurry up to ruffle his dark locks, silky-soft and unbrushed, fondly.

All Aaron heard was his mother going off about how the coffee machine was waking the whole neighborhood, and then the all too familiar smack of his father’s palm against someone’s skin. The boy winced, pressing his little cheek forcefully against the cool wooden rail like it was him who took the hit.

  
It was one of those days. He would watch as his father walked out the door unfazed and serious, and a few hours later, he would go to the kitchen to find his mother stuffing cigarette after cigarette into her holder, lighting them with shaking hands, tears dried on her face. She would send him out to play on the streets, or wouldn’t even bother to, as she quickly took to day-drinking and calling her friends on the phone, telling them time and time again how much of a bastard Henry Hotchner is, how stupid she had been to agree on marrying him.

  
It took Aaron another few years to see that she was more an accomplice to his father’s bad nature than the very victim of it.

  
_Stunned silence followed the long, buzzing sound of his monotone voice, which he didn’t take as a great sign. Especially from a professional who was trained to listen to FBI agents and their personal traumas - she should be able to handle everything._

  
_‘Have you talked to anyone else about this?’_

  
_'Once,’ he admitted, his right thumb mindlessly finding its way to his left ring finger, where his ring used to lay straining. 'and she’s dead now.’_

  
_'There’s no correlation between the bond that you shared and what happened to her.’ the woman reminded him, laying back in her chair to better process the very start of their session. As usual, Hotch didn't believe a word of what she just said, even though she'd said it many times. 'Say, Aaron. Is there anything about you that you kept even from her?’_

  
_Hotch let out a slow, steady breath, one that was too precise to not sound pressured. They had a strict no-name policy about Haley, something that the therapist brought up to keep her a tad bit depersonalized, but not forgotten. She somehow managed to understand that, while Hotch was administered to consultation because of his wife’s brutal murder, there’s so much more to his story than that fated day when they really got on Foyet’s tail. She had to divert his attention, so that’s what she did, almost effortlessly._

  
_'It’s not like I kept a list.’ he finally said, voice barely resembling a low mumble. 'But there are some things, yes.’_

  
If he had met Frank at another time of his life, he would’ve been appalled by the boy.

  
In retrospect, he was. Because Frank was loud, he was often obnoxious, he bullied others sometimes, he used substances and he manipulated everyone he befriended into using them as well.

  
Frank was danger, and 15-year-old Aaron wanted nothing more than just that. He wanted to belong to someone else, something else than his family home, from which he stayed away as many nights as possible - lying about school trips and sleepovers at childhood friends first, and then not bothering to lie at all.

  
Their favorite pastime was getting high behind the empty seven-eleven near the plastic factory, and a close second was borrowing the motorcycle that belonged to Frank’s father to drive to Potomac Park at night. They talked, smoked cigarettes and drank warm, stolen booze until the Sun came up and it was time for another day of misbehavior.

  
The first thing Aaron noticed was the uncomfortable warmth that settled into his stomach while he hold onto Frank’s waist when he drove the bike. He remembered splaying his fingers against his stomach tentatively, careful to not put him off, and almost missing the balance shift at the next turn without Frank’s direct warning. He remembered the hot flush of his face in the helmet even in the cold autumn breeze.

  
By the time he started paying attention to the details of Frank’s face, he knew what was happening. He knew he wanted to kiss the mouth that wrapped so intimately around another Lucky Strike. He knew that he craved the scrape of his light stubble against his palm, against his own chin, and the knowledge terrified him. Frank had hit and degraded other boys in the past for acting flamboyantly, calling them _fags_ and _homos_ and _disgusting_ in various order. What would he do if he knew that Aaron, who fought by his side, who was with him always, who he shared clothes and food and experiences with, is actually one of the disgusting faggots?

  
He couldn’t let that happen. So he swore to never tell anyone about how he felt about Frank, or some other boys he met, occasionally.

  
And then he met Haley, who was an answer to all his prayers that went somehow along the lines of: “Please, God, just let me have a normal life.”

  
_'You never told Frank you were attracted to him?’ she asked quiet, gentle. Hotch kept his gaze fixated on the corner of the soft, green rug and shook his head no. His hands were tangled and strained, frozen in a nervous motion of worrying his knuckles._

  
_'I met him some time ago in Georgetown.’ he said, never lifting his eyes, never letting his poker face break into an expression that wasn’t devoid of emotions. 'He lives with his second wife. Has three kids, his oldest is around Jack's age.’_

  
_'What were you feeling when you met Frank after all this time? Was the spark still there?’_

  
_'You have to understand.’ Aaron said, sitting up straight and finally looking up at the therapist in front of him. 'I grew up catholic. My father was, for lack of better word, a strict traditionalist. These kind of things just weren’t allowed for me. Not even the thought to entertain.’_

  
_‘So you’re struggling with internalized homophobia?’_

  
_'I wouldn't say I'm struggling. I don’t fight it. I just live with it.’_

'Hotchner.' Gideon called out to him calmly, yet the sudden bother to his wandering mind made him flinch externally. He looked up at the man standing at the door of the PD office, eyes always unreadable, expression empathetic. His mouth curled downwards, corners twitching like something had been bothering him. 'You've been quiet ever since we landed. Normally we could hardly shut you up.'

'Sorry, sir.' he mumbled, trying to figure out where had he last seen a coffee machine in the building. Once they're finished here, that's where he will be headed. 'I think I'm not used to traveling so much.'

'I think different, but by all means.' There was now an enigmatic smile on Gideon's thin lips that annoyed Aaron from the very first time he had been exposed to it. Gideon took a step backwards to clear the doorway for him. 'Care to grab a coffee?'

That was another habit of Jason Gideon that annoyed him: reading the mind of everyone he's ever encountered and being shamelessly cocky about it.

'Why, exactly, do you think I've been keeping quiet?' Hotch asked heatedly, practically rushing past the man and expecting him to keep up. 'Sir?' he added to soften the edge of his voice. 'I thought there was a no-profiling agreement between profilers.'

'That agreement is only for David's sake, but it's nonsense.' Gideon shrugged. 'He feels better about himself when I don't tell him how much I know about his personal life, but a profiler is always a profiler. Soon you'll understand too.'

'Understand what?' Hotch growled, unamused by his superiors' bickering.

'That you can't switch it off once you already found your way to get into other people's heads. The micro-expressions, the intonations, the nervous ticks, even the movements of someone's feet. Behavioral analysis is a learned skill but a skill that will become a part of your life. You'll notice things about people. Maybe not lying or deception, but you'll see if they behave differently, and you'll know if it's from frustration, or because something good had just happened in their lives. Right now, I can see that you're struggling.'

Hotch stopped in his tracks to stare at Gideon right into his stupid, self-fulfilled face. It helped soothe his ego that he was maybe an inch or two taller than the man. 'Care to tell me why I'd be struggling?'

'Because you've had the ranks at the DA's office, and Seattle.' Gideon interlaced and then opened his hands as he explained, just how he always did when he cared enough to try and get the message through. 'You're an ambitious man, Aaron. Always have been, and ambitious men can't stand feeling like they aren't in charge. Which, as a profiler in training, you aren't now. This makes you feel conflicted because at the same time you want to earn our approval and stomp us into the ground because you're entirely convinced that you can run the show better.'

Hotch forgot to breathe. 'Except this isn't a show, and you know it. There's no place for selfishness when there are lives at stake, you've learned that during your career. There's no doubt about that. But you're also afraid of your own temper and drive. It's like you're a bomb constantly going off yet secured in a box in order not to harm others. You won't share opinions in the field because you confuse plain expression with aggressively taking charge, because that's what you really aim for with every brilliant comment of yours.'

'I want you to stop worrying about that.' Gideon smiled gently, despite the awful things he had been saying up until then. 'I knew all this even before I hired you, and I wouldn't have done it if I thought you weren't, in your fiery nature, an excellent addition to the team.'

'Thank you, sir.' Hotch said quietly, all of that hatred gone from his voice. He now looked at his superior in awe.

'Call me Jason, kid.' he answered with a good-natured pat on the younger man's shoulder. He started walking away, but he stopped when Hotch called out his given name immediately.

'The unsub kills in the night and leaves the bodies by the crowded highways outside of town.' Hotch explained, brows forming a strict line of focus above his dark eyes. 'We thought that the roads are only the dumpsites, that he leaves them out in the open like that to taunt us.'

'What if it's actually a truck driver? Coronary report suggests they weren't moved so much as to make the distance from the town to the highways before rigor mortis settled. Maybe the victims were hitchhikers that he killed inside the truck.'

'They were all too well-dressed to be on the road like that.' Gideon argued.

'Then maybe their car broke down. There's plenty of holes and ascents around there that could hurt some general family cars. Let's have the locals scan the area for broken vehicles, maybe he hid them in the woods after.'

'They could've phoned for a tower first, don't you think?'

'Not if there wasn't any signal, which there isn't much up there.' Hotch tried to contain his excitement as he saw Gideon's doubtful expression soften into one of acceptance.

'If you're wrong, we're wasting a significant amount of time and resources.' he finally said.

'If I'm right, we have a lead. Showing the profile around at the truck companies will get us to the man in no time.'

Gideon looked at him for another long minute, his gaze again unreadable. 'I'll tell the deputy to send out a search team for the vehicles.'

'I take full responsibility for this decision.' Hotch nodded.

'I know you do, kid.' Gideon grinned and then walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch ponders a few more about his life choices and overall character. Also, we find out that he had a fling with Emily once.

_'Jason was right about a lot of things.' Hotch mused, his fingers swiftly skimming the armrest of the leather couch. 'But even he didn't see that I'd been overcompensating. I used to project it on others, you know?'_

_'I used to accuse everyone of trying too hard.' he took a deep breath, suddenly feeling like the air is too thick to inhale. 'When in fact, I was the one who tried too hard. All my life I tried to meet expectations. My father's, my mom's, my teachers', my superiors'. And when there wasn't anyone left to impress, I made some up for myself.'_

_'You haven't caught a break in so long, Aaron.' the doctor said softly. 'Maybe you should take a vacation.'_

_'I'm not planning on starting now. I got things done because I kept exhausting myself to the end, and I know, one day, I'll die in it.'_

_'Do you know there's such a thing as being passively suicidal?'_

_Hotch shut his eyes, forcefully. He wasn't ready to hear that yet._

_'I'm aware.'_

It happened after the first case Derek had handled as Unit Chief, when Hotch refrained from leading the team and indulged in being reckless instead.

Neither of them had planned it this way and neither seemed to think much of it. The jet was delayed because it had been previously used to fly the FBI bosses to Houston, and they stayed in the hotel for another night. Hotch had videochatted with Jack and wrote his report by the dim tablelight of his hotel room, arranged the coronary reports in a folder for Morgan to work out, and only then had he headed for the hotel bar with Prentiss and Rossi for the night. The three of them knew better than to believe they could sleep a full eight hour before the jet could come to pick them up at 7 AM, so they decided to have a couple of drinks by themselves.

Rossi took off early, claiming to be needing at least six hours of beauty sleep, so it ended up him and Emily having those few drinks. Then they had a bit more than a few.

The next thing Hotch had remembered was pulling Emily right back into a harsh, bruising kiss after the slow and tentative peck she had left at his mouth, stirring up the both of them but still leaving a lot of unspoken desire under the surface of their actions.

Emily softly moaned as he pushed her up against the doorframe, hands grips of iron on her hips, keeping her still, keeping her in place for him to use. She fumbled with one of their cards - he wasn't even sure whose room they were trying to get into, only that her shampoo smelled like fresh fruits and a hint of ambrosia -, to get the door open, just to get in and tear each others clothes off, tear into each other in earnest with a little more privacy than the lit hallway allowed them to.

He remembered laying her down the bed and following her right into the horizontal position. He remembered yanking her bra off and burying his teeth into her plump breasts. He remembered breathing her in and thinking her scent is way more spicy than Haley's - he remembered the piercing guilt he felt at the comparison, remembered yanking her thighs up and apart to press kisses onto her abdomen as she called out his name in quiet, broken gasps.

She came under his tongue with a weakly masked shout, her entire body shivering and contracting, pieces of clothing still hanging loose from her body, being wetted by beads of sweat and bodily fluids. Noticing that, Hotch carefully angled her hips to roll the soaked underwear down her legs and took his place between them, bending down and softly kissing her neck in a soothing way.

'Can I-,' he breathed, but Emily cut him off by wiping drool away from his lower lip with her thumb.

'God, I knew you were chivalrous but you still surprise me.' she chuckled, pushing back a few sweaty dark locks from his forehead with nimble fingers. He fluttered his eyelids close, enjoying the soft touch, almost purring. 'Most guys just put it in without getting me off or asking first, and you do both.'

'I'm seriously concerned for your choice in men.' Hotch furrowed his brows, the worried expression falling away in an instant as she rose to push a tender kiss onto his mouth. He then rolled his hips into hers aimlessly, yet he still elicited a high-pitched moan from her.

'May I remind you that right now,' Emily purred, pushing her legs up and around his lower back, opening herself up for Hotch once again. 'you _are_ my choice in men?'

'I wish you wouldn't.' he moaned impatiently, fingers helplessly digging into the bedding under them. 'Just answer me.'

'For what question?' Emily giggled lightheartedly, causing the man to lift his face in order to fully show his pained frown. She cradled his face softly, fingers smoothing away early wrinkles of stress. 'Yes. Yeah. Take me, Sir Hotchner, knight of respecting women.'

Hotch grinned wide at that, laughing as he angled himself to her entrance. Emily smiled back lovingly, until the overwhelming feeling of being united, together like that, took both of their breaths away from further chuckles.

He first shut his eyes, tight. Then he buried his face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in - shuddering, as he neared his own climax. Emily held onto him, but she didn't try to get him to look back up. She understood, rubbing circles into the back of his head as she pulled him closer.

Following all those drinks and how spent they both were, it didn't come as a surprise that Emily would be out cold as soon as they finished. Hotch spent some time cuddling close to her, trying to get his exhausted muscles to work and mentally preparing himself to leave the warm cocoon of quiet care they had for each other.

As he laid there, head propped up on one of his toned arms, he looked closely at Emily's sleeping face. She appeared uncharacteristically peaceful, calmness sitting heavy in her corners, smoothing out all that anxiety and insecurity she had been battling day by day.

Hotch bent down to press a soft kiss to her temple, waiting there unmoving to see if she would react to the touch. Nothing - it was safe for him to untangle himself from under the blankets and go on a scavenger hunt for his discarded clothes.

'Leaving already?' A sleepy voice asked, and he jumped a little in his place, startled. Emily rolled over to the side to face him, yawning enormously and extending her limbs in an inviting motion. If he didn't feel so crappy about taking advantage of her, Hotch would've actually felt fond about the display.

'Look, Prentiss-' he tried, but she once again interrupted him with a wave of her fingers.

'As far as the team's concerned, it didn't happen. Don't worry about it affecting our work.' she stated cheerfully.

'I'm not worried about work.' Hotch huffed quietly, leaving his dress shirt as it was laying half unbuttoned against his chest, bending down to pull his pants up and over the end of the button-up.

'Well, you're clearly worried about something.' she raised a questioning eyebrow at him, suddenly feeling self-conscious about being naked and pulling the blanket up to her chest. She waited as Hotch contemplated leaving things at that, but ended up taking a seat on the bed beside her, staring intently at her gentle fingers as he was collecting his thoughts.

'I don't usually do casual things.' he said then, sounding unsure of himself. 'And I know for a fact you aren't into them either.'

'Hotch, you're overthinking it.' Emily smiled softly, finally getting him to find her eyes. 'I'm not in love with you. Last I checked you don't feel that way for me either. This is only a one-time thing. We got drunk, you gave me head and we fucked out some tension.'

'Prentiss.' he warned, but he was rather flustered than angered by her choice of words.

'It was a happy coincidence, all I'm saying. That we both needed it, like this, at the same time. You weren't the only one who used me, these things go both ways. It doesn't have to affect the mutual respect and love we share on normal days.'

Hotch finally cracked a faint yet genuine smile at that. 'Were you really drunk or were you just pretending?'

Emily laughed softly, reaching out to stroke the bare skin of his chest, still available between the cracks of the undone buttons. 'I could ask the same of you.'

_'Was this all that happened between you and Agent Prentiss?' The woman asked suddenly, snapping him back to the air-conditioned, artificial-smelling therapist's office in reality from the warm hotel room smelling of sweat and human bodies in his memories. It was a rough transition, as Hotch rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath simultaneously as it happened._

_'Is there a reason the details of my hookups interest you so much?' he said with furrowed brows. 'Let's get one thing straight. I'm telling you this because I trust you to not start some kind of twisted workplace gossip.'_

_'Patient confidentiality is still in the works, Aaron.' she declared calmly. 'What you say stays between us. You just seem more invested in the event than one would be concerned for a casual hook-up.'_

_Fair point, Hotch thought. After all, therapists should work a little like profilers in order to do their job with the greatest efficiency._

_He sighed, 'I've known Emily Prentiss since she was a young woman. I taught her hostage negotiation in the Academy, and before that, I worked with her mother on an international criminal lawsuit.'_

_'Would you consider the two of you close?' Hotch nodded to get the question out of the way - he was deep in thought now._

_'Her mother had these dinner parties. Lots of booze, everyone in cocktail dresses and tuxedos. I used to have a three-piece suit, that was before my chest was too large for the vest. Haley-... my wife, fiancé at the time, couldn't come because she was having dinner with her folks. Her father wouldn't forgive me for missing out on it, but I considered attending part of my job.'_

_'But Emily was there.'_

_'Maybe it's because how I used to be with Dad, but I always felt more at ease with women. So I talked to Mrs. Prentiss and Emily for the entire evening. She felt as if the whole room was suffocating her, she wasn't one for diplomacy and politics, even at that age.'_

_'How old was she?'_

_'Twenty-two. Barely legal enough to drink the champaigne.' Hotch sported a small smile as he finally glanced up to the woman sitting in front of him. 'But she downed half a bottle of scotch.'_

_'Did anything happen between you then?' she asked, causing the smile to fall straight off of the man's face._

_'I had always been faithful to my wife.' he crossed his arms, soothing himself. 'You asked if we did anything else with Emily recently. She got dressed with me and kissed me in the doorway.'_

_'That's very nice of her.' she hummed, but Hotch softly shook his head no._

_'It was proof that she lied to me. She does feel something for me. Something that I cannot reciprocate.'_

The one between him and his father on that day was the worst silence he's ever experienced.

It was piercing, deafening. It was the kind of quiet that laid thick between two people, keeping unspoken words at bay by its all-consuming weight. This kind of silence had gravity to it, yet it wasn't nearly enough of a pull to get them to speak their minds - their deepest, darkest, most genuine thoughts to each other, because two decades of dishonesty made real communication impossible.

'Do you need more money for the treatment?' Aaron asked quietly then, years and years of smoking now making him painfully aware of his own healthy lungs and windpipes.

'From broke college kids?' Henry Hotchner snorted. 'It would barely do much.'

'Dad.' he called out harshly, again all too aware of his father's egotism. He spent some time just observing his thin frame: his broad shoulders seemed to sag in on themselves, his wrist seemed too skinny, and there were too many shadows on his face. Aaron momentarily blamed himself for not reading the signs sooner. 'How much do you need?'

'I want to tell you something.'

'Tell me how much?'

'I know I never stood a chance for Father of the Year awards.' The lump in Aaron's throat grew twice in its size, closing off the way of air and words. 'I was a coward and a fool, and I never knew how to raise kids.'

'And I also know that I had no hand in making you the man you are today, son.' Henry's eyes shined a little under his thick, dark brows, and his small smile pulled on the lines of wrinkles across his face. 'So I have no reason to tell you that I'm proud of you, because it was none of my doing.'

'Dad.' he gasped, brokenly.

'This is not an excuse or an apology. I just wanted you to know that you're remarkable, in case you didn't have the self esteem before you got to work.' Henry shrugged his shoulders, and released the railing of the patio. 'Don't go selling your soul to companies.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' Aaron mumbled, bowing his head slightly in his direction. Even in sickness and weakness, Henry Hotchner had an aura of a great man.

'It's stage four and spread to the chest tissues. I'm off my medication.'

"The child is father of the man."

\- William Wordsworth.


End file.
